THE STORY OF A WATCH.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2013, 27 February 1890, Page 3

THE STORY OF A WATCH.

Apropos of the projected exhibition of Waterloo relics at Drury Lane, a correspondent writes to the Globe : One incident may interest your readers before they see the watch c£ a hero who fell that day, June 18. He was shot through the body, a bullet entering his chest and out at the back. J o say the least, it is not a wound one would like, and the doctors of those days had some rules to go by. We hear now of marvellous wounds, operations, cures, and the victim recovers ; but at Waterloo you were shot through the body, therefore you were, in the eyes of the medico, a dead man, and onr “ hero ” was told so. He still retained consciousness, and replied, “ Take this watch to my brother and —tell —him —” More was not said ; he fell back insensible. The calls and shrieks of the wounded, the flying shots from Wellington’s pursuing army, generally confused the surgeon, and after the search for the dead was made he forgot where he had left the man who was shot through the body; therefore the watch remained in his possession. After the war he was ordered to join a regiment ia Canada, with no opportunity of finding the dead man’s brother, as be thought, and the watch went with him to Canada. Three years later our hero, having recovered in pome wonderful' way (perhaps because he was left alone), was at a dinner party at Bath, and heard, amid a dead silence of interest, the story of his death related, and his valued property exhibited to the assembled company. It came round at last to bim, and, to the surprise of the surgeon and everybody present, he said, “ Oh, then, you are the man who stole the watch !” Had a ghost from Waterloo appeared they could not have been more startled. However, a shake of the hand, with 15 Ail right, my boy,” made the poor surgeon quite happy, tbopgb be felt the “ hero ” ought to have died on the field. The watch, of peculiar make, was handed down with its story to the hero’s godson, and may be sent to our enterprising Augustus’s collection of Waterloo relics.